They say if you live long enough you'll see everything there is to see. And sure enough, I believe I'm about to see for the first time a national presidential election held that may well revolve largely around the color of a candidate's skin.

For while some might've thought that racism was on its deathbed in today's society, the Democratic primaries have shown that in certain sections of the country it's alive and well. And that the only open question is, to what extent will it determine the outcome of the general election on November 4?

While blacks did succeed in breaking the color barrier in congressional elections for the first time in the 20th century--a la Sen. Edward Brooke in 1966; Sen. Carol Braun Moseley in 1993; and Representatives Arthur Mitchell in 1935 and Shirley Chisholm in 1969--only two before Barrack Obama, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, ever vied for the highest office of all.

Now, a lot is being made of the fact that Obama has had difficulty in selling himself to the white, working class and in convincing them that he shares their values and concerns (especially after being trounced in the Quaker State). Don't really know why that is, for he hardly had a "silver spoon in his mouth" when he was born, or an easy road to follow in achieving the success he has.

Looking back to where I grew up in that working class town of Gary, Indiana, I know firsthand the prejudice the whites felt towards blacks in that one-industry town. For while they didn't object to working and sweating alongside of 'em in the steel mills, once their shift was over the white workers would return to their company built homes with a patch of grass out front and, more than not, with a swing on the porch. And about the only time you'd encounter a black in the neighborhood, other than when shopping downtown, was when they were making a delivery of coal or ice.

Black workers, on the other hand, lived-literally-on the other side of the railroad tracks, which segregation had existed for as long as the steel mills bellowed out unfiltered smoke in the sky.

But all that changed in the late 40's, the beginning of which was when my school was the first one in the town to be integrated. And despite the white parents protests-even pulling their kids out of school-it wasn't long before calmer minds prevailed and the turmoil ended as quickly as it started.

On a personal note, my mother was the last white person on the street where she lived, who unlike her white neighbors hadn't fled to the suburbs to escape the influx of black families moving into the area.

She'd never seen a black person up close. And I remember how touched I was when I returned home on furlough from the Army to find that she had befriended a young black boy around the corner, who would come over daily to help her with the gardening and to hear her worldly advice about life, in general, and the importance of getting a good education, in particular. (When she moved to South Bend to be with her sisters, I was told that the little boy was in tears and that a number of black neighbors came over to wish her well.)

In hindsight, it was undoubtedly my mother's interracial experience that played a major role in eliminating any prejudices I might've had towards people of different color. And fighting alongside black soldiers in Korea erased the last remnants of it.